Let’s say that approximately ten percent of the people are naturally altruistic. The rest are self interested. This is not my calculation. It is the assertion of someone whose work I respect and who wrote about these things. Where did he get the figure of ten percent? Why not only five percent? I don’t know, but let’s work with it.
You may have seen the film Enemy At The Gate. It is set during the battle of Stalingrad in WWII. The hero is Vassili Zaitsev – a soldier who for his skill with a rifle is promoted to sniper. He comes to the attention of Commisar Danilov, whose task it is to inspire the army in its time of dire need.
Commisar Danilov’s stock in trade is inspiration, and so he promotes Zaitsev’s reputation until even the enemy hear of the famous sniper.
Things are going well until Danilov falls for the very woman who is attracted to Zaitsev. And in following his desires, he acts against everyone’s interest but his own.
Things continue until Danilov is lying in wait with Zaitsev, trying to winkle out the famous German sniper who has been sent to kill the famous Russian sniper and so reinstate Germany’s honour.
Zaitsev and Danilov are lying there, and then a realisation he can no longer evade comes to Danilov. He reflects on the damage he has secretly done to Zaitsev and the woman who loves him. Danilov sees that he has made a fundamental error in his understanding human nature. He sees that all his work to promote equality in the Soviet Union. all his exhortations, are undone because man will always find something to envy in his fellow – taller, more attractive, more popular, cleverer.
Danilov wants to make things right. He raises his head a little to present himself as a target to the German sniper, and is shot dead. Once he is dead, the enemy sniper reveals himself, believing he has killed the famous Zaitsev – only to find that he has made an error and the Russian sniper has him in his sights.
So what to make of Danilov’s self sacrifice other than that he is fulfilling an obligation to the very thing he recognises is impossible to achieve? To what logic, to what feeling did he attach himself that obliged him to sacrifice himself?
Was it just the pain of self knowledge? Maybe, but equally he might have said to himself that although he had no redeeming qualities and nor did man, he could live with that.
Had he done that he would have been free – free of care and free of conscience.
But he doesn’t.
Is he a romantic self-deceiving fool who throws his life away for nothing? We can’t think so, not from the way he has behaved. Certainly he is not altruistic by nature.
Does he see something else, a bigger picture beside which his own life is a cog in the process of bringing about something worthwhile?
Who can answer these questions? Where would one go for answers?